"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

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Yeah, it’s been a long time. I’ve been busy. But today I’m going to catch up on sleep and do laundry, so maybe I can also include a little writing and reflection.

First of all, let’s flash back to when I got onto a train in New Orleans. The date on the ticket reminds me that it was November 11, 2015. My bicycle was stuffed into a bike box. I was happily congratulating myself on my excellent planning skills by not overbuying food the last time I restocked my panniers, so they were a little lighter and smaller than usual. That made it easier to stash them into the luggage racks! But after a few hours of sitting on the train, I started to feel a little hungry, and then realized that of course I would be sitting on this train for two days. With a dining car that charged $8 for a microwaved hot dog.

Oops.

Mr. Lion feels a little queasy… it’s been a while since we’ve seen the world go by this fast!

Oh well, that was okay. Being in the dining car gave me lots of opportunities to mingle with the other travelers! And I have to say, these weirdos choosing to travel across the country by train instead of by plane are definitely worth talking to. Their stories and reasons for traveling by train range from the inspirational to the downright bizarre and mildly horrifying. Yes, I acknowledge that they may be saying the same thing about me. One girl I met found me such an oddity that she pulled out a camera and videoed our conversation as she subjected me to a formal interview.

The ride is officially completed! The coast-to-coast portion concluded in Charleston, South Carolina, where I dipped my wheels into the Atlantic Ocean at Folly Beach, appropriately known as the Edge of America. That wasn’t the end of my journey, though, since I still wanted to ride to Atlanta and conclude at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.

Flashback to April and the unruly waves of the Pacific.

As you can see in the above video, I received an extremely warm welcome at Emory! My sister Cindy had done a lot to spread the word of my arrival. I was humbled to be greeted by the very people I admire, the doctors, nurses, and researchers who work tirelessly at providing the best care for patients in need. As they crowded around me and thanked me for helping raise awareness for bone marrow donation, it was only too obvious to me that they are the ones truly deserving of thanks. I am honored to be able to take part and make a contribution, however small it may be, to their life saving work.

The waves on the Atlantic side were much more cooperative.

Somehow, they allowed me to take Lutz up to the bone marrow transplant unit in the hospital! I was introduced to patients and their families, and it was another humbling experience to be included in their battles to regain their health. While I am glad to have had this opportunity to raise awareness for Be the Match and the need for bone marrow donors, I am also constantly thinking about how I could have done things differently, how I could have done just a little bit more to help the cause… well, I guess that just means I’m not done yet! My bike ride may be completed, but the mission, of course, is not. Possibly, given what I’ve learned from the first attempt, I should plan another ride… what do you think?

Oops, should I have provided a spoiler alert at the beginning? Sorry. But yes, in case you haven’t guessed already, the ride is completed safely! However, not everything went to plan. Much of the route was altered along the way. I guess I’ll flashback to how I came to be in Cookeville, Tennesse, which was where I left off the last entry, and retrace my steps back to Atlanta.

Many apologies for not writing more frequently, but such is life on the Soggy Edge.

This post will have to be a bit different from the others. I’m not going to take the time to write about everything that’s happened, so I’ll have to just pull a few select tales. Besides, the chronological travel log style is not really the kind of writing I had hoped for myself, so this will be a break from that.

Also, the heat and humidity and general rugged lifestyle is destroying my electronics. This computer is driving me nuts. I never know where my cursor is and it unexpectedly jumps to random places. And the struggle for decent wifi continues. There will be no uploading of photos, because it drives me to tears. (Update – I’ve now come back and added photos.)

Isaiah recovers from his bone marrow transplant at Colorado Children’s Hospital, many thanks to a donor in Germany!

This section of my trip started with lots of climbing, and that was pretty much the theme for the next two weeks or so.

Wednesday June 10th found me in Cedar City, visiting my Cousin Kathy and her two sons. I got going pretty late as I took the opportunity to clean out and reorganize my panniers in an attempt to get a fresh start. I also really enjoyed chatting with my cousins and continuously helping myself to just one more slice of coffee cake.

Eventually I left and started my adventure on the Western Express Route. This route has a rather foreboding description on the Adventure Cycling website:

The Western Express Bicycle Route… challenges the rider with extreme weather and riding conditions, as well as logistical obstacles. One’s efforts are rewarded, however, by experiencing some of the least visited and most magnificent areas of the American West…

East of Cedar City, Utah, the route passes through some of the nation’s most isolated communities and several of its most spectacular scenic wonders. Take some time to explore Cedar Breaks, Escalante, and Natural Bridges National Monuments; Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks; and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. To even the most experienced of travelers, these natural sculptures, spires, buttes, and canyons are no less than humbling. The Utah portion of the route could be a worthy destination in itself.

I’d already taken my tours through Zion and Bryce Canyon, so I wasn’t expecting to encounter anything that could really compare. Oh, I was so unprepared. Continue reading →

What’s the matter with me? Why am I out here by myself saying goodbye to Boise?

Bulls standing in the road, falls in the mud, rugged dirt roads, a swarm of bees, thunder, lightning, overpowering gusts of wind that come out of nowhere, mosquitoes the size of hamsters, clouds of tiny persistent bugs, more flat tires, long stretches of empty road, coffee deprivation, and aching solitude. Just some of the things that come to mind as I think about the week I pedaled from Boise to Salt Lake.

Saying farewell to a newly beardless Dan.

It was really difficult to say goodbye to Boise. Boise had been excellent to me. I loved my hosts, Kristi and Dan. They made me feel so cozy and welcome. They reintroduced me to music, which I hadn’t realized I’d been missing so much.They shared their scotch with me! Of course I didn’t want to leave. But leave I did, and as I was on the road by myself, without Kevin and Sunyoung, outside the city of Boise, I snapped a picture of being on my own again. When I looked at it, I surprised myself with how bewildered and abandoned I looked. A little rattled by the image, I had to remind myself that I’ve done this traveling by myself thing before. Just keep going, it’ll seem normal again soon, I thought. I doubted that, though. I was already missing the coast and the redwoods. I gazed out at the seemingly endless desert and sagebrush, my ribbon of road just disappearing across the horizon, and felt very out of place.

My destination for Wednesday, May 20, was Glenns Ferry, but, as usual, I didn’t get the early start I was hoping for. Wary of the lack of services along my route, I had spent a long time at the grocery store restocking on granola bars and other essentials. Then I made my way to Pleasant Valley Road. The name promised good times, didn’t it? I’m sure it’s very pleasant when it’s paved, but at the time I arrived, all the asphalt was scraped off and construction crews were hard at work. I bounced along and fought the soft dirt and rising dust, almost thinking it would be a relief when Google Maps took me off of the main road and onto a dirt path.

You’ll have to forgive me, I think this post is going to seem a little vague. The last week of cycling went by in a blur, and honestly I rarely knew exactly where I was. For what is probably a more accurate account of what happened, visit Kevin’s Basses Bikes and Boise!

Anyway, I spent a glorious couple of days relaxing in Portland with wonderful hosts. Despite all the help I got from Sue and Be the Match, Portland CrossFitters did not respond to my requests to hold donor drives at their boxes. Which was a little disappointing, but also kind of nice, since that meant more domestic time under a roof for me. I baked cookies for the family, went on grocery shopping trips, got a little massage, did my laundry, and all those little things were very soothing. Friday May 8th rolled around very quickly, though, and it was time to meet Kevin and Sunyoung at the train station.

Linda calls up the different Be the Match reps in the northwest district and introduces me as a “celebrity.” Ha!

I cheated and got a ride into downtown Portland so that I could have time to poke around a bit before the train came in. I dropped in at a CrossFit box to make sure they knew what they were missing out on by not hosting me (just kidding, I’m sure they’re doing their own wonderful things!) and then swung by the Be the Match office unannounced. Linda Alexander, manager of the northwest district, was engaged in an absolute flurry of activity, but once she realized who I was, she squealed and enveloped me in her tornado of energy. Almost immediately she plunked me into a conference call with the other Be the Match contacts in the northwest district. It was great to hear Frances’ voice again and to get to talk to John, whose email I had recently blown up with plans for Boise. Continue reading →

It was time to do a longer solo trip to really work out the kinks of bicycle travel, so I decided to go to Folsom.

Yup, that Folsom.

I hear the train a comin’
It’s rollin’ ’round the bend,
And I ain’t seen the sunshine
Since, I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom Prison
And time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a-rollin’
On down to San Antone

– Johnny Cash

Why Folsom? Back in my student teaching days, I made a friend in Felton named Molly. She just recently started a teaching job at a continuation school in Rancho Cordova and moved into a house in Folsom. I really wanted to see her classroom and hang out with her a bit and just get to know what her new life is all about. She’s gone through some difficult times, to put it mildly, and I’m just happy that things are going so well for her now.

Just a small section of the Western Express Route. Of course, I wouldn’t be starting in San Francisco.

Fortunately, the Western Express Route, a quicker route across the US than the TransAmerica Route, goes right through Folsom, and I just happen to have those maps! It was too perfect: a fantastic opportunity to explore an Adventure Cycling route, and a route that went along the American River Trail, no less! I love the American River. I used to go whitewater kayaking on the American River quite a lot, so that river is filled with precious memories for me. Continue reading →

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This is me

I'm an instructor at a Coding Bootcamp, but I made this website before I knew how to build my own from scratch and was instead riding my bicycle all day every day across the country looking for bone marrow donors. Maybe someday I'll rebuild it, but that would be a lot of work.

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"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University